


Zoe

by ThatCatLover



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: 2nd person POV, All jokes aside though, Also it's in a weird person, Broken Bones, Character Study, Child Abuse, Child Abuse within Siblings, Gen, I do not show Connor in a good light here, I'm not really sure what that means but I think this is it, Kinda, Referenced Drug Use, Support Zoe Murphy 2020, here so if that triggers you, like maybe 2nd person, possible trigger warning, there's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22125013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatCatLover/pseuds/ThatCatLover
Summary: When your boss takes out the chalk to write on the chalkboard outside, you ask if you can write your own name instead of her writing it for you. She looks confused for a second, but then says “Knock yourself out,” and hands you the chalk.Under the words “Tonight's Performer” you write one word in big purple letters: Zoe. You do not include a last name. You include doodles of stars, hearts, and swirls. You underline your name with a squiggly line. You do not include a last name.You don’t need one.Or, The Author has noticed an embarrassing amount of unwarranted Zoe Hate in this fandom and is going to fix that if it's the last thing she does.Possible TW read the tagsPlease comment your thoughts!
Relationships: Connor Murphy & Zoe Murphy, Past Zoe Murphy/ Evan Hansen
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	Zoe

When your boss takes out the chalk to write on the chalkboard outside, you ask if you can write your own name instead of her writing it for you. She looks confused for a second, but then says “Knock yourself out,” and hands you the chalk.

Under the words “Tonight's Performer” you write one word in big purple letters: Zoe. You do not include a last name. You include doodles of stars, hearts, and swirls. You underline your name with a squiggly line. You do not include a last name.

\-------------

You don’t need one.

You were a Murphy from the second you were born. Zoe Laura Murphy, that’s what it says on your birth certificate. And from that moment on, you’re Zoe Murphy. Not a bad thing in itself. The problem is that you’re not just Zoe Murphy, you’re Zoe Murphy, Connor Murphy’s little sister. When you’re taken home from the hospital, a wailing blob of flesh in a pink blanket, your mother tells Connor,

“Hey, honey. This is your little sister, Zoe.”

Your parents tell you that from the second he laid eyes on you, Connor loved you. 

And you loved him. You were inseparable. You learned how to walk with him around. You played together, ate together, slept together. You actually shared toys, something that the women in your mommy’s book club were jealous of. They could never get their kids to do that.

Connor danced with you. You played nerf guns with him. When you accidentally broke a glass once, the two of you made plans to run away together and hide from punishment. When you got caught, sneaking out the front door, backpacks stuffed with bears and comic books and clothes, Connor took the blame for the glass. You don’t think your parents ever found out who really broke that glass, you doubt they even remember it. 

You remember it. You’ll likely always remember it.

\----------

When you’re eight and Connor is nine, he starts changing. He pulls away from you. You stop dancing together. Someone at school found out that he dances ballet for fun. They said that boys don’t do that. Connor comes home crying and he refuses to tell you who made him cry. Two days later, you’re on the playground. There’s a group of older boys on the top of the playground and up there with them is Connor. And one of the boys pushes him.

In less than a minute (you can tell because you learned how long a minute is in class) you’ve climbed the monkey bars and hopped into the fort at the top of the jungle gym. You don’t know it then, but you’ve just broken about every single unwritten rule that there is in elementary school, the biggest one being that you don’t go into the fort at the top of the jungle gym when there’s fifth graders up there unless they’ve given you permission. Fifth graders are elementary school elite. 

But this is Connor, a fourth-grader who’s being pushed around by bullies, and so you don’t care. You grab one of them, the one that’s the biggest and the most important, and you bite down on his wrist. Hard. Hard, hard, hard, until he screams and cries and his friends flee, moving down the slides faster than you’ve ever seen. You let go of his arm and he runs away yelling that he’s gonna tell on you. You really don’t care. You look at Connor he’s crying and you’re about to hug him but he looks angry. He yells at you that he never wants to talk to you again. And while you’ve now become the hero of the third grade for biting a fifth-grader, the fifth graders now gossip about Zoe Murphy, Connor Murphy’s little sister who’s so mean and gross and bit the most popular boy in the grade on the wrist because she was jealous that he was talking to her brother.

And again, you don’t really care. Not about the bullies, they had it coming. You do care that your brother isn’t talking to you anymore. You also care that he still refuses to dance with you.

For a short while, those women that mommy talks to say that they’re worried about you, that you might grow to be “trouble” and “might possibly even be a bad influence on Connor”

It isn’t until you’ve grown up that you realize how ironic that was.

\---------

You are ten years old. Connor is eleven. He’s become closed off completely. There’s something that happens when a person turns eleven that makes them hate anyone younger than them. Maybe it’s because they go to middle school, maybe it’s the realization that there are just two more years until they become a teenager officially, maybe it’s just puberty finding yet another way to ruin lives. All you know is that now Connor is eleven and he hates you.

Mom and Dad say it’s just a little sibling rivalry. That’s the excuse they end up using a lot to describe the relationship between you and Connor. A rivalry. That is not what you’d call it.

You’re outside one day, it’s spring. Mom and Dad have forced Connor out of his room and onto the back patio with you. Your mom tells him not to waste such a beautiful day. Connor has this giant black hoodie on. You don’t know where he got it, nor why it’s so big on him, nor why he’s wearing it outside when it’s so warm. You’re just in shorts and a tee-shirt, and your still a little warm. The bright sun beams down on you and your brother, you worry a little about his pale skin getting burned.

Connor isn’t doing anything, he’d just sat down on a chair and pulled his legs up to curl into a ball. He’s refused to cut his hair lately, it’s a little bit past his chin right now, and that combined with his hood drawn up blocks you from seeing his face.

“Why’re you wearing a jacket, Connor?” You ask. “It’s hot out.”

He mumbles back for you to shut up.

“Wanna play with me?” You ask

“No, Zoe. Fuck off,” he says back.

“Mama! Connor said a bad word!” You cry, because ‘fuck’ is something only the adults can say to each other when they’ve had too much wine. It’s not for Connor to say.

“Zoe, shut up!” Connor yells at you. But you keep yelling for your mom and Connor keeps yelling at you to just shut the fuck up and you don’t remember how or when he moved but Connor is standing next to you now. Standing over you now. He has his hand grasped tightly around your arm now and he’s pulled it behind your back and it hurts _. _

You hear a crack. It  _ really hurts. _

Connor is hurting you.

You scream.

Loud.

And you aren’t quite sure how long you’re screaming for, and you’re not even moving, not really. Connor is moving you and he’s screaming too. Distantly, you can hear the sound of the patio door slamming, the sound of your father’s sneakers and your mother’s sandals hitting the ground.

The feeling of Connor being torn off of you and the sharp, shooting pain in your arm from the sudden movement is not distant at all.

A while later, after hospital waiting rooms and x-rays and a pink cast, you go home. Connor is still crying.

“Zoe! I didn’t- I’m sorry, I just angry and I don’t know why. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want to hurt you, I swear. I promise. God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He sobs. Your father clears his throat from the back of the room and makes eye contact with your brother. He nods.

“Please forgive me,” Connor says quietly. Pathetically. You nod.

Your parents tell you to tell your friends that you fell while riding your bike and that’s how you broke your arm. The real story would be bad for Connor’s healing process.

Connor is the first one to sign your cast.

\---------

It isn’t just the incident with your broken arm when you’re ten. After that incident, Connor starts seeing a therapist and promptly stops once your mother declares him “better” four months later.

After the fights at school, he sees another therapist. After the fights at home, he goes to yoga. Your mother brews special teas that her book club friends recommend that decrease stress and calm people when they’re angry.

After one especially heated argument at the dinner table in which some especially unflattering words are thrown at you even though you were just trying to eat your nasty-ass quinoa in peace, Connor storms off to his room and your parents tell _ you _ to calm down. It’s the first time you ever felt genuinely livid with your parents. Your mother puts on the kettle for Connor.

When you are thirteen, and Connor is fourteen and your parents do nothing about the blunt they find in Connor’s room, you are shocked.

A year later, when you are fourteen and Connor is fifteen, he breaks your ukulele. You are blood-boiling, heart-hammering, vein-popping angry. But you are not surprised.

\--------

When you are fifteen, and Connor is sixteen, you march into highschool in the yellow dress and jean jacket that you love, guitar case in hand and stars in your eyes. 

In your first class during roll call, your teacher calls out “Murphy, Zoe?” and you raise your hand, high and proud until your teacher follows up with 

“Any relation to Connor Murphy?”

When you respond by saying that he’s your brother, you’re given a look that makes your heart sink down to your doodle-covered converse.

At lunch when you introduce yourself, you are met with “Like Connor Murphy?”

When you apologize to the girl in the hallway that your brother pushed, and you explain your relation to Connor, the girl responds with “I am so sorry”

It seems you’ll never be just Zoe Murphy again.

  
\---------

When you are seventeen, and Connor is barely just eighteen, Connor kills himself.

\---------

When you are seventeen, and Connor is dead, you get your first boyfriend. You are introduced to a new version of your brother, one that you haven’t seen in years. Since ballet recitals and treehouses and your first piano concert where you messed up Mary Had A Little Lamb and started crying of embarrassment halfway through and Connor cheered louder than anyone and picked a flower for you on your walk home.

You hear and see a different Connor. One that wanted and tried to get better. One that made you feel guilty for not grieving before, but apparently was so kind that he wouldn’t have wanted you to grieve. 

This Connor wanted the world to get better, he had a best friend who he snuck into abandoned orchards with and who you fell in love with. This Connor helped people feel found, saved people.

This Connor loved you.

This Connor was almost too good to be true.

Shortly after you turn eighteen, you find out that he is

\---------

When you are eighteen, the world shatters around you like the glass you broke as a child. When you are eighteen, your heart snaps in half like your arm did on that fateful summer day. When you are eighteen, your life screeches to a halt like your prematurely ended piano solo while your now ex-boyfriend weeps apologies.

Even after the Connor Project fame dies down there’s still the rare person who hears the name Zoe Murphy and makes the connection. Sometimes they thank you for sharing Connor’s  fake story. Sometimes they call you a bitch for not doing better for your brother. Your college roommate asks about Connor constantly. You’ve gained and lost friends solely for Connor’s story. A part you knows deep down that as long as you have the name Zoe Murphy, the rest of the world will add on the last part: sister of Connor Murphy.

\---------

As you finish drawing the last star on the chalkboard sign, you step back to admire your handiwork.

Just Zoe. No last name, no title, no relations. 

Just you. Zoe.

You’ve always liked your name. You like it even more now that it belongs to you.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed. Started this one-shot ages ago and stopped. Comments on some of my other stories gave me inspo. Haven't written in a while so I hope it turned out alright. Please comment what you thought. It's not even kudos that I need (though I would be grateful) I would just love to hear what you thought.
> 
> Peace out, get some sleep, and drink water  
> Cat


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